Knights of the Hawk (21 page)

I swore. This wasn’t what the king had planned. Unless the boat-bridge was in place, we had no way of reaching the Isle. Our attack would be over before it had even started, and the battle would be lost.

Shouts of protest came from behind. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the rest of the column bunching up as our advance was brought to a halt. Men were berating those in front, trying to push their way forward despite the narrowness of the bridge.

‘Wait!’ I bellowed. ‘Hold position!’

‘Wait!’ Eudo repeated, and Wace behind him, and the next man, and the next, and I only hoped that our warnings were heeded. Of course those knights were impatient, as I was, to slake their thirst for enemy blood, but many would die if they didn’t keep to their ranks.

‘What do we do?’ Robert asked me, his brow furrowed, his eyes desperate. ‘Do we go on?’

‘We have to, lord,’ I said. ‘We can’t turn back now.’

‘But if the boat-bridge isn’t secure—’

‘If we delay any longer here, it won’t matter. We’ll be too late; the rebels will break our spearmen and then cut the pontoons loose, or burn them, and we’ll have no way of reaching the shore. We have to go now, and trust that the bridge will be ready in time. If we don’t, all our efforts will have been for nothing. It’s now or not at all, lord.’

Robert didn’t look sure. I glanced over my shoulder, back along the column, and my gaze settled upon the golden lion upon a scarlet field, the age-old symbol of the Norman dukes, flying proudly in the rising wind. King Guillaume himself had given us this responsibility. If we refused it at this late hour our names would be forever tarnished. We would have cost him his best chance of capturing Elyg and wreaking his revenge upon the rebels who defied him. He would strip us of our lands and the few riches we had to our names, cast us into the deepest, darkest dungeon he could find and leave us there to rot. We could not fail him. Not now.

My heartbeat resounded through my entire body, and I could hear the blood pounding in my skull. My fingers tightened around my shield-straps in one hand and my lance-haft in the other.

And I knew what I had to do. If Robert refused to make the decision, then I would make it for him.

‘With me,’ I cried, raising my weapon aloft so that the steel glimmered in the light of dawn. ‘For Normandy!’

I dug my spurs into Fyrheard’s flank and he reared up, teetering on his hind hooves for a moment, before falling back to earth.

‘Tancred—’ I heard Robert shout, and heard, too, the desperation in his voice, but then his words were drowned out by the cheer that rose up as one thousand voices together shouted out. A bolt of confidence surged through me, and as Fyrheard broke into a canter I found my limbs filled with fresh vigour, my mind with fresh purpose. I had no need to look behind to make sure that the rest of our host was behind me, for I could hear it in the thunder of hooves and the whooping as men revelled in the battle-joy.

A flock of wading birds heard our approach and rose all at once with a clatter of wings and a chorus of alarmed shrieks. I kept a firm hand on Fyrheard’s reins, trusting in his sure-footedness to keep us both alive. The mud swirled and sucked at the foot of the earthen banks, and the marsh-waters lapped at the posts and revetments. A short distance to our right ran the course of the original causeway, the one that had collapsed all those weeks ago. I recognised it not just from the ruined timbers that littered the mud all about, but also from the scores of corpses of horses and men that had been left there to rot without Christian burial, their mail and helmets brown with rust, their flesh blackened and swollen, with what remained of their innards spilling out. They stared unseeing from empty eye sockets, their jaws fixed open as if even in death they were still crying out. Yellowed bone protruded where carrion beasts had picked away the skin and sinew. The stench of their rotting flesh filled my nose, more powerful than anything I had known, and I fought the urge to retch.

I tore my eyes away, focusing on the way ahead and the rebels tumbling in their hundreds down towards the shore. A ragged mass of spears and scythes and hayforks and the long English knives they called
seax
es, they charged upon the Norman battle-line, until at last there came a crash like thunder as limewood boards and steel bosses met, and then men on both sides were screaming, shouting, falling, dying. Thus the grim work of the shield-wall began. Behind the protection of their countrymen, the bridge-workers were still labouring to manoeuvre the final few pontoons into place, lashing them together with ropes and anchoring them to the marsh-bottom with stone weights attached to chains, but they did not have much time, for I saw even now that the enemy foot-warriors outnumbered our own, and already it seemed they were forcing them back towards the marsh.

‘On!’ I shouted above the din, trusting that Robert and Pons and Serlo and all the others were with me as I set out across the first of the pontoons, leaving the earthen dykes behind me. Iron clattered upon oak and I felt the planking bob beneath Fyrheard’s hooves, not by much, but enough to send a shiver of doubt through me. ‘On,’ I cried, trying to put those fears from my mind. ‘On, on!’

That was when I heard Robert shouting.

‘It’s too short,’ he cried. ‘The bridge is too short!’

For a moment I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me, but as I stared at the shore and those Englishmen charging towards us, suddenly sickness gripped my stomach.

He was right.

The line of pontoons did not quite stretch all the way to the Isle’s shore, but came to an end around thirty or forty paces short, in the shallows rather than on dry land. Perhaps the recent rains had swelled the marsh-waters more than the king’s engineers had expected, or else the current had taken one or more of those floating platforms and carried them downstream. I didn’t know, and it hardly mattered. To reach the shore we would now have to fight our way through water that I reckoned would reach up to our mounts’ knees, if not even higher.

‘Keep going,’ I yelled. ‘We can make it!’

I sounded more confident than in truth I felt, but only because I knew we had no choice. Everything depended on us. We couldn’t give up now.

Barely three hundred paces ahead, the Norman shield-wall was beginning to break as the English ran amongst them, driving a wedge into their ranks, surging forward with shining blade-edges raised.

‘Faster!’ I yelled, knowing that if the enemy managed to rout our spearmen, they could hold the shore against us and drive us back into the marsh. With that in mind I spurred Fyrheard from a trot into a canter, which was as fast as I dared ride along those narrow platforms. ‘For Normandy!’

Indeed one flank of the Norman shield-wall had already collapsed, and a group of rebels perhaps two score strong was now racing through the shallows towards the pontoons with axes in hand, having spotted our approach and recognised the danger.

‘Faster!’ I repeated. ‘Ride harder!’

The bridge shook beneath the weight of the charge, and the timbers creaked. At any moment, I thought, they would give way, splinters would fly, and we would all, knights and banner-bearers, destriers and palfreys, be plunged into the fen. Surely it could not fail now, not when we were so close. Fewer than one hundred paces stood between us and the Isle. No Frenchman had managed to come so close in three months on this campaign.

Let the bridge hold, I prayed. Let it hold.

I clenched my teeth. Reed-banks and gold-glistening meres flew past on both sides. The thunder of iron upon timber filled my ears as Fyrheard’s hooves thudded in rapid rhythm upon the oak planking, so loud that I could hear nothing else. Not the shouts of the enemy or my companions. Not the screams of the dying or the clash and scrape of steel on steel up ahead, or the jangle of my mail, or the blood pounding in my skull, or the clatter of the chains anchoring the pontoons, or the creaking of timbers, or the whistle of arrows being loosed by the bowmen in the punts out on the marsh. Only the unrelenting thunder reverberating through my skull.

I was dimly aware of those two score rebels rushing to meet us, crashing thigh-deep through the marsh-waters with steel in hand and the promise of death in their eyes. My attention was fixed upon the bridge’s end, which was growing nearer with every stride. Like any good destrier, Fyrheard was trained to water, so I didn’t expect him to falter or to panic, but nevertheless I felt my stomach lurch and my breath catch in my chest as we galloped along the last pontoon, the final dozen strides, and I saw the marshes looming. My fingers tightened around the haft of my lance and the straps of my shield—

As Fyrheard leapt.

All fell silent. For the briefest moment I had the sensation that we were flying. Beneath us was only air, but not for long, before Fyrheard’s hooves came down, and then suddenly there was water and mud all around. Showers of spray drenched my shoes and my braies and soaked through my mail to plaster my tunic against my arms and chest. Fyrheard was crashing on through the shallows, the marsh reaching as high as his forearm, but he didn’t seem to mind. On my flanks now were Serlo and Robert, and I wondered what had happened to the captain of his knights, whether his horse had stumbled or refused when it came to the water, but there was no time to dwell on that now. I couched my lance under my arm, levelling the point at the enemy. Seeing us charging through the marsh towards them, for the first time the rebels hesitated, unsure whether to attack or to flee.

In the end they failed to do either. I fixed my gaze upon the one who would be my first target, his beard sopping, his long hair clinging to the side of his face, and then it was just as if I were tilting at the quintain. He came to his senses and tried to get out of our path, but too late. Slowed by the water, he only managed to get a couple of paces before I was upon him, ramming my lance into his shoulder. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough to knock him off balance and make him lose his footing. He sprawled forward into the water, falling under the surface, under Fyrheard’s hooves, and straightaway he was forgotten. Knee to knee, kicking up sheets of spray, we rode on, making space for those behind us to follow. In their desperation to reach the bridge, the enemy had abandoned their serried ranks and were now in disarray. We charged amongst them, filling the morning with the blade-song, freeing our weapon-arms, striking out to left and right as we carved a path through the shallows, making towards dry ground.

An Englishman came at my left flank, bringing his axe around in a wild swing that glanced off my shield-boss, denting the steel and sending a shudder through my arm all the way to my shoulder, only for Robert to ram his lance home into the man’s neck. Another, screaming in rage at the death of his friend, ran at my undefended right hand, aiming his seax at Fyrheard’s belly, but my weapon had the greater reach, and before he could come close enough to strike, I plunged my lance-head down, into his breast, twisting the weapon as it went in, until I felt the crack of ribs and knew I’d found his heart. I left the blade lodged in his breast and he collapsed with a splash, adding his corpse to all the others floating upon the surface. They bobbed on the waves, turning the surrounding waters a dirty crimson.

‘Normandy!’ I yelled, drawing my sword and raising it skywards, hoping to rally our spearmen, whose battle-line had been broken. With few places to go except back into the marsh, however, most of them were fighting on, albeit divided and surrounded. I only hoped that their doggedness would now be rewarded. The rest of Robert’s conroi was with us now, and others besides as rank upon rank of knights spilt from the bridge on to the Isle’s shore. They fanned out in pursuit of the kill, cutting down those who had broken from their shield-wall to come to challenge us, presenting the rebels with a decision: whether to throw themselves into the battle here, and try to drive us back into the marsh, or whether to return to the safety of their fortifications on the higher ground some three hundred paces or so to the north, where they could make a proper stand against us. Already some of their rearmost ranks had turned, preferring the latter, more sensible choice to death at our hands, and it looked as though the message was spreading to the others. They realised that the bridge was ours, that they’d lost that particular struggle, and so as one they were falling back.

At that sight I gave a roar of delight. The field was all but ours, because any moment now Morcar would show himself and give the word to his followers. They would turn on their countrymen, and then the real killing would begin. Against all expectations, we had done it. The bridge had held and we had led King Guillaume and his army to the Isle, and soon, if our luck held, to victory.

‘What’s Morcar’s device?’ I called to Pons and Serlo as we found ourselves briefly with space around us. They both looked back blankly. Glancing around, I found Robert not far off. His face was pale, his eyes wide, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was still alive.

‘Lord,’ I called, and repeated my question.

‘The white stag on a green field,’ he shouted in reply as his hearth-knights rallied around him.

I turned my attention back to the fleeing Englishmen ahead of us, some of whom were casting aside the shields and weapons encumbering them, others slowed by injury, hobbling on sprained ankles and wounded thighs, or bearing bright scarlet gashes to their chests and sides. The battle-joy surged through me, filling me with laughter as we raced from the shallows on to firmer ground, riding down our quarry. They looked back over their shoulders when they heard our hoofbeats upon the turf, closing in on them, and in the whites of their eyes I glimpsed their fear. But the ground was soft and uneven, with tussocks of tall grass everywhere, and bulges and dips and pools of stagnant water that were hard to spot from the saddle, all of which slowed us and meant that although we succeeded in killing a good few stragglers, most of the English were getting away, falling back towards their ramparts, which were now little more than a hundred paces away—

That was when I saw it. The white stag, that noble animal, flying proudly above those earthworks, along which were arrayed rows upon rows of spearmen in gleaming mail.